What A Waste

What A Waste an exploration of plastic usage in canada

With the recently announced ban on single-use plastics by 2021, which will include plastic grocery bags, stir sticks, six-pack rings, utensils, and straws, it seems problems with plastics are finally gaining some recognition in the public eye, and more importantly, from our governments.

Before this announcement, Canadians used 15 billion plastic bags each year, 57 million plastic straws every single day, and saw 1.3 million kilograms of plastic enter Lake Ontario every year, according to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s website.

Nestle plastic water bottles are available by the case in FreshCo, along with bins of plastic Gatorade bottles and plastic wrapped vegetables, in Bowmanville. These plastic water bottles take hundreds of years to decompose, and are filled with water taken from all over Canada.

So where do the millions of plastic bags and straws end up? According to Environmental Defence, since recycling is so expensive compared to dumping or using new materials, in every province except B.C., this expensive job is left to municipalities, which are required to collect and process plastic packaging all on their own.

Most organizations, including the International Institute for Sustainable Development, estimate that Canadians recycle nine per cent of plastics produced each year (since 1950), but some municipalities in Ontario are revealing that number is not entirely true.

Alana Bancroft, customer service administrator at Quinte Waste Solutions, overlooks a mound of waste over five metres high, in the facility’s sorting area, in Trenton in late November, 2020. Standing on a walkway overlooking organized bins, Bancroft explained that the facility’s workers sort through 30 to 60 tonnes of recyclable materials a day at full capacity and are trained to quickly sort through different grades of plastics, aluminum and paper. Discussing Canada’s nine per cent recycling rate, Bancroft explains that that figure encompasses all materials across the country, including agricultural, automotive and construction materials. Ontario’s blue box program is actually much better at diverting waste in some municipalities, with Quinte Waste Solutions achieving a recycling rate of 89 per cent.

Alana Bancroft, customer service administrator at Quinte Recycling Solutions, explains that these estimates have led to some misconceptions, especially in Ontario, which has the designated blue box waste program.

Billy, a sorter at Quinte Waste Solutions, uses a loader to dump clean HDPE (high-density polyethylene) plastics onto a conveyor belt in Trenton in late November. These plastics will go into a bale compactor that will press these plastics into specific bales that will be sold to companies that will reuse the material.

"Many people believe that this percentage is a representation of the total percentage that the blue box program recycles, when it is really representing all the material available in Canada."

Bancroft explains that Quinte Waste Solutions, which sorts, recycles and sells recyclable materials for re-use, actually has a recycling rate of 89 per cent.

“The sectors that were looked at for this study (that concluded a nine per cent recycle rate), include packaging, waste electronic and electrical equipment, agriculture, automotive, white goods, construction material, textiles and other plastics.”

When reviewing these sectors, she says that textiles only have a diversion rate of five per cent, which means that 95 per cent of items like clothes and fabrics end up in the landfill – not plastics. Although Ontario may have a Blue Box program to attempt to participate in a circular economy, not every province has this same system, which demonstrates how much of a disconnect there is between each municipality across Canada.

A stray pop can lies at the end of the sorting conveyor belt, at Quinte Waste Solutions, in Trenton in late November. After all the plastics and other recyclables have been sorted out, these aluminum cans are the last materials to be sorted. The machine on the left of the photo actually uses an eddy current, that zaps the cans up into the piping above, and transfers them into a bale compressor.

Not only is this disconnect creating more barriers to efficient recycling, but it is also resulting in a cumulative global economy loss of about $8 billion, according to the International Institute of Sustainable Development.

This represents the loss of value in plastics after just a single use. With some organizations stating that plastic producers need to take more responsibility for the plastics they create, we need to take a better look at Ontario’s recycling system as a whole.

The blue box program, which is Ontario’s system of recycling, is funded through three sources: municipal taxes, material sales (sold to recycling companies) and producer supported stewardship funding, according to Bancroft. She said that under the waste diversion act, companies that are stewards of designated blue box waste are required to share in funding 50 per cent of the net cost of the Ontario municipal blue box program.

“A steward is any organization or company that is a resident in Ontario and is a brand owner, first importer, or franchisor that supplies any of the designated blue box materials into the Ontario residential market.”

So not only are some companies partly responsible for funding the proper recycling of their products, but Bancroft says there is a new producer funded recycling program headed our way by 2025, which could change the way we recycle now, and hold companies more responsible for the waste they produce.

Quinte Waste Solutions may be doing an excellent job in Ontario of recycling and diverting waste, but we are still seeing negative impacts plastics have on our wildlife and environment and are now beginning to understand the effects they may have on us humans.

According to an Environmental Defence report, 90 per cent of seabirds in the world have plastic in their stomachs, 50 per cent of all cetaceans, a group of aquatic mammals which include whales, dolphins and porpoises, have eaten plastics and one third of the world’s sea turtles have also consumed plastics.

An old face mask lays in a pile of fish bones at Bowmanville Creek, in late October. In the fall, visitors find piles and piles of trash heaped on the creek bank from anglers who hunt for salmon and trout during this time of year. From cans of alcohol, to coffee cups, the trash can be found throughout the entire creek. These anglers also leave behind piles of fish eggs and fish remains.

Ducks swim through floating trash at Bowmanville creek, in Bowmanville in late October 2020.

With Environmental Defence estimating that one million seabirds die each year, and over 800 species are suffering worldwide because of our plastic usage, animal lover or not, you begin to worry about the negative effects of plastics.

Not only can the physical obstruction of these plastic pieces cause problems, but in addition, the toxicity of the building blocks that make plastic, called monomers, are proving to be dangerous as well. Vinyl chloride, a monomer building block in the PVC piping commonly found in houses, is listed by the international agency for research on cancer as carcinogenic to humans, according to Environmental Defence. So dangerous, in fact, that it is listed in the same grade as tobacco, asbestos and formaldehyde.

This kind of toxicity has also been recorded with brominated diphenyl ether flame retardants (POP-BDEs) in certain plastics heading to recycling facilities. These banned BDEs have even been found in plastic children’s toys and persist in plastics because they are not effectively separated out during processing, according to a peer reviewed article written by Dr. Heather A. Leslie and associates in Environment International.

Continuing to examine the structure of plastics, the Smart Prosperity institute based in Ottawa, says that in 2017, 99 per cent of monomers used to create plastics in Canada were drawn from crude oil or natural gas. So, not only are the plastics themselves creating problems, but their production does as well.

A used tampon applicator lays on the beach at the Leslie Street Spit in Toronto, in November 2020. According to the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup, over 3,000 applicators are found on Canadian beaches each year. With more environmentally friendly alternatives like menstrual cups, or reusable menstrual pads or even paper applicators available to consumers, there are more environmentally friendly options available to us.

A pile of trash sits along the waters edge at Bowmanville creek, in Bowmanville in late October 2020. The plastic water bottles pictured here will take hundreds of years to break down, but if they were properly disposed in the local blue bin, could have been recycled.

If plastics end up killing millions of animals each year, are toxic to humans, and pollute the air we breathe, why isn't finding alternate solutions to plastic use a top priority? Well, according to the Environmental Defence group, Canada has no national recycling target, and no standard laws across the board that require recycled materials to be used – our country seems to be divided on the importance of recycling.

So, what are our options and how do we make the necessary changes?

According to the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment, we need to extend producer responsibility for plastic packaging design, recovery, reuse, recycling and eventually disposal. In addition, we need clear visual markers on plastics that help processing facilities properly sort them, so we reduce the contamination of recycling streams.

We also need consumers to understand the products they purchase, and where they end up.

According to Bancroft, some items like garbage bags, can actually be recycled, so consumers should look for bags that have 10 per cent or more recycled content – helping facilities in Ontario to continue to collect and recycle grocery bags and other types of film plastics. In addition, Environmental Defence recommends that we ban plastics that contain harmful additives, create national recycling targets, create standards that require 75 per cent of a plastic product to be made of recycled materials, and enforce legislation that makes plastic producers responsible for the collection and recycling of their products.

At the consumer level in Ontario, we can make sure our items are clean for pick up, in the proper container and are actually recyclable, says Bancroft, making the jobs of the people collecting and sorting easier.

Although we see a rise in popularity of products like metal straws, or beeswax wrap as an alternative to plastic wrap, we are slowly beginning to understand that not only do individuals need to play their part, but large corporations and companies need to take responsibility for us to see a change.

A kids play pool sits crumbled, on the beach at the Leslie Street spit in Toronto in late November 2020. Among plastic water bottles, plastic straws, used tampon applicators, and even old broken toilets, this beach was littered with all sorts of trash from the city and its surrounding watershed. Guests are left wondering how a plastic kiddie pool ever ended up on this beach.

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